The issue tracker

We manage all of our projects using an issue tracking and project management application. This is also opened up to enable our customers and other partners to see what's happening and interact with the team. We hope this will be an easy and familiar system to use and have the following guidance notes to help get you started.

This idea of an issue tracker may seem daunting to some, however, it is designed to be simple and easy to use and is geared around ensuring web projects are delivered to specification and on time. From quick support jobs and tasks to large scale web projects, our issue tracker helps manage all of our work. And when used effectively it leads to happy customers, and in turn happy Web-Engineers.When handling an enquiry one of our team will raise a relevant issue for you, or you may even raise the issue yourself direct. By having an issue on the tracker you have a point of reference on what was asked and how we dealt with your enquiry through to completion. The tracker is not a replacement for a conversation, however, it can seem quite conversational at times when reading at the details.

What’s in an issue?

An issue is a job or task we’re looking at for you, we will classify the nature of each issue using the following tracker titles; Bug, Support, Feature or Maintenance.

Bugs are elements of your website that are broken or not working, Support is a general that you need our assistance with, Features are something completely new that you want us to develop. Finally, Maintenance issues are updates or refinements that ensure the continued smooth running of your site.

Issue priority

We grade issues according to how urgent they are and how quickly a response is required. The priorities and target first response times are as follows:

Low – time isn’t crucial

Normal – typically within 2 days

High – same day

Urgent – half day

Immediate – within 2 hours

State of an issue

Issues also have a status, the status of an issue goes through a logical process of steps from its creation to its completion:

New, the initial status, it’s on the system but may not have been picked up by a member of staff yet

Pending, the issue has been assigned to a staff member and it’s on their work queue to start soon

In progress, work is currently being done on your issue by a member of our team

Feedback, this means our team have reached a point where we need your feedback or your input on the issue. Depending on the priority of the issue and if we don’t hear back from you on the tracker we will call to discuss the issue to help move it forward

Resolved, we have now completed the issue, at this point please check the work meets the agreed requirements, and you’re happy to sign off the work.

Closed, Usually we expect the author of the issue to close the issue, this confirms the customer/author is happy with the outcome and there is no further work to be done.

Estimated time – we try and give an indication of how long a task will take, with each update we will update the percentage complete so you can see how the issue is progressing. As these are estimates occasionally these can change as the detail of the issue becomes clear.

Email

When an issue is updated an email will be generated to the issue author to update them of the progress, if you’re not the author of an issue you can also watch issues to get updates. This can be handy when a team are involved in the issue and collectively need to know how it is shaping up.

When you respond to emails generated by the tracker your response will be added to the issue, however – as the entire email is added to the issue we ask that you clear the content of your reply and only include the text as you want to see it added to the issue. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do this, however it does keep the issues nice and neat.

You can manage your mail preferences also by logging onto the tracker and clicking “my account” this will give you the option over when you’re emailed, what address is used and how the issues are presented to you.

One thing worth noting is that the issue tracker does not replace a conversation with you. If at anytime something isn’t clear or you want to just send us a message by other means you can still do this. Obviously the more you engage with our tracker the less time we need to spend managing your issues, our recommendation is to contact us first so we can have a quick chat about the nature of the task, and what you want to achieve. Then we leave the tracker to manage the issue and keep you up to date with its progress.

Text doesn’t impart emotion and sometimes a quick talk can make all the difference – we’re here to help and will happily update the issue(s) where needed to ensure that we’re on the right page and delivering on your expectations.